From the Mind of Ryoma Echizen
by Suzume Jun
Summary: Seigaku's tennis team is being sent to therapy after their Coach dies. Their therapist gives them different topics they must write about in their "journals". Nothing too harmful right? Reading the entries of their youngest player puts that to question. Rating due to paranoia and future topics.
1. Chapter 1

**From the Mind of Ryoma Echizen**

Summary: Seigaku's tennis team is being sent to therapy after their Coach dies. Their therapist gives them different topics they must write about in their "journals". Nothing too harmful right? Reading the entries of their youngest player puts that to question.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it then it doesn't belong to me.

**Chapter One: Brother**

Everything

That is the only way I know how to properly describe Ryoga.

You may believe this vague, maybe even slightly childish, but that word has been inscribed in my mind about the person who calls himself my older brother since before I can remember. Never do I remember a time that Ryoga was less than perfect, he has always been top of his class, the favorite of everyone he has met, social with people naturally, and great at tennis…as his little brother I never stood a chance.

He did everything perfectly that took me years of backbreaking practice and hard work to accomplish without even trying. And you know what?

I'm sick of it.

Sick of the constant comparisons,

Sick of not being good enough,

Suck of being overlooked,

Sick of being unwanted,

Sick of losing,

Sick of this game of pretend,

Sick of waiting.

No matter how long I wait it isn't going to happen, I know that. But even with the knowledge I still find myself clinging to that stupid hope.

Sometimes I think it is all a dream made up by my mind in a moment of desperation but I remember a time when it wasn't like this…

When Ryoga protected me,

When he WASN'T the pinnacle of perfection,

When we were brothers,

When I felt that if I only tried hard enough I could be something too,

When the Echizen family WAS a family,

When I wasn't afraid of my friends meeting Ryoga,

When something OTHER than tennis mattered,

When the two of us were equal.

But that was a long time ago, so long ago that my memories are fuzzy and questionable. So long ago that all I truly know is the now.

And in the now I don't have love, or importance, or a true family to go home to, or security that my friends won't leave me, or even an older brother really…

…All I have in the now is tennis…

…And even on a tennis court he wins without ever even trying.


	2. Chapter 2- Child

From the Mind of Ryoma Echizen

Summary: Seigaku's tennis team is being sent to therapy after their Coach dies. Their therapist gives them different topics they must write about in their "journals". Nothing too harmful right? Reading the entries of their youngest player puts that to question.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it then it doesn't belong to me.

Chapter Two: Child

Innocence lost too early before it had a chance,

A sport some call a game is only pain to this one

Abandoned by all he stands alone, though not by choice

If something doesn't happen soon, this child will fall

Hiding in the dark of night behind locked doors,

Praying that someone somewhere will save him

Blood dripping and sliding to release the pain,

Crimson like tears and dripping through the floor,

No one to make it stop, before this throat bleeds raw,

Night terrors that are all too real come to choke

Around the thoughts that would try to rise,

And then the nightmare comes, never dies. 

Hush child, its coming; this is the fear, footsteps sound one by one

Hush child, don't scream, drip blood and break bone,

Hush child, just close your eyes and forget,

Hush child, and let the world fade, then fall into the abyss. 

Expectation runs high and this child is not enough,

Not when the stains are too deep and disgusting,

Not good enough for what it wants,

Not enough, used and tossed away into the fall.

Though he's no child, not anymore.

They don't need to know however,

The ones who will probably never understand anyway

After all, isn't it better this way?


End file.
